thursday february 26, 2004 educause southwest deploying a portal solution: an it and academic unit...
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Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
Deploying a Portal Solution: An IT and Academic Unit Perspective
Dr. Harry KoehnemannAssociate Professor
Division of Computing StudiesArizona State University
[email protected]://latitude.east.asu.edu
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
Outline
What is a portal? what is uPortal? Portal advantages What is going on at ASU?
IT organization Division of Computing Studies
Application integration strategies for uPortal Experience and recommendations
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
About Harry
Academic Associate Professor for 3 years in Division of Computing Studies Adjunct faculty for ASU’s Computer Science for 4 years
Software Developer Over ten years experience, many in e-learning
web applications Understand software development and deployment issues
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
What is a Portal?
“ “A site featuring a suite of commonly used services, serving as a starting point and
frequent gateway” **
Single access point to a suite of applications Provides end-user customization and personalization
** http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/portal/
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
What is a Portal?
Personalization/
Customization
Authentication
Single Access Point toMultiple
Applications(should
provide single sign-on)
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
What is uPortal?
“a free, sharable portal under development by institutions of higher-education”
Low entry cost Complete open-source solution Many channels freely and commercially available
Vendor support UNICON-IBS – channels, CMS, services, support SCT – integrated into product, community involvement
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
Who Created uPortal?
Original development funded by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Continues with university and business collaboration
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
Why Portals? One Stop
Single access point and sign-on – simple, easy What was that URL? Which password?
Record Final Grades
Library
Roster
Class ScheduleCMS
Change Health Plan
Check Pretax Accounts
Manage Pretax
AccountsCampus
Organization Web Sites
Payroll
Traffic Fines
Bookstore
Dining Hall
Register
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
Why Portals? Serve Diverse Groups
University’s scope spans beyond students, faculty, and staff Does the home page communicate the proper message to each
group?
Students
Faculty
Staff
AlumniLocal
IndustryLegislature
Grant Agencies
Future Students
DonorsParents
Guests
Local Commun
ity
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
Why Portals? Personalization
Give individual user the content he/she needs to perform tasks
Add, remove, organize channels
Add, remove,
and organize channel
structure (columns and tabs)
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
Why Portals? Open-Source Solutions
Open-source means: Value
Quality implementations exist for free
Quick, easy access Install and run in an hour
Support Active on-line groups Commercial support exists
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
What’s Going on at ASU?
Information Technology Reviewed multiple portal solutions Chose uPortal and rolled out instance in Fall 2003 Includes channels for payroll, email, news, etc. – more to come
Division of Computing Studies Using students to create uPortal channels to automate
department business Leverage portal instance deployed by IT
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
ASU uPortal Instance
Portal Vision “Front door to the Mall” Destination of choice for all constituents Cyber real estate for all online traffic
Selected uPortal after extensive review process Other vendors did not share above vision – too teaching and
learning centric Other vendor’s architectures were difficult to learn and integrate uPortal architecture allows scalable portal site
Channel content served off other servers
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
ASU uPortal Instance
Initial role out Fall 2003 Attract 15,000 visitors per day Currently supports the following channels
General Students Faculty
Directory Search My Grades Payroll
Library Catalog Search Accounts Receivable Accounts Receivable
Dictionary/Thesaurus Academic/Financial Links Faculty/Staff Links
Outlook mail client Bb Courses/Groups Bb Courses/Groups
ASU Webmail Student Fees
Spam filter
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
ASU uPortal Instance
Low hanging
fruit – open source
channels
Single sign-on
Personalization
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
ASU uPortal Instance
More low hanging fruit –
custom integration
with campus services
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
ASU uPortal Instance
Integration with campus records
system
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
ASU uPortal Instance
Integration with Blackboard and campus email
application
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
Division of Computing Studies Activities
Write portal applications to automate department businesses Use students for development Leverage IT investment in uPortal deployment Share results with open source community (scholarly activity)
Projects Tracking graduate admissions process (deployed) Integrate UNICON Academus (uPortal-based CMS) and
Blackboard with True Outcomes for outcomes-based assessment (started)
Manage “defense day” presentations and schedule (started)
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
Admin Committee Members
Chair WebXtend
Creates formsDistribute
Review and recommend
Return
CollateGive all reviews
Final decisionReturn Forms
Place in student's file
View admission packet
View adminission packet
Graduate Admissions Project
Current process involves routing paper forms
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
Graduate Admissions Requirements
No more phone calls from perspective students!!!
Enter applicant information
Print final eval form
Admin
Committee Members
Chair
Check statusStudents
Final review
Review applicants
WebXtender
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
Graduate Admissions Pages
Graduate Admission Demo
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
uPortal Channel Integration Techniques
Support tight or loose integration with portal system Require more or less support from IT staff and resources
Portal is an aggregator of content Data, functionality, and content may reside in different locations
Portal
ContentAggregation
DatasourceNative channel
Datasource
Proxy/feed channel
IT Supported SupportedElsewhere
External feed/app
Native channel
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
uPortal Channel Integration Techniques
1. RSS Feeds RSS initially designed by Netscape to build portals of headline
news – now many different types of feeds (blog, etc.) uPortal provides RSS channel One-way information flow
2. In-line Frames Channel content rendered by external application outside
control of portal system Quick and dirty, browser talks directly to server However, lose consistent look and feel, personalization,
security, single sign-on
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
uPortal Channel Integration Techniques
3. Proxies Render content remotely and pull through portal Can require some changes to target application to facilitate
better integration – look and feel, CSS, single sign-on Can pass information such as user credentials in HTTP header Proxy must perform URL rewriting Target must use portal’s CSS and constrained HTML (no
javascript, etc.) depending on proxy’s abilities
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
uPortal Channel Integration Techniques
3. Proxies (cont’d)1. Write a proxy channel (or use uPortal’s CWedProxy)
Grabs content and renders filtering URLs and HTML
2. WSRP Formalized web service standard for proxy Specification includes standard CSS elements, etc.
3. JSR168 Portlet Specification includes ability to proxy servlets and JSPs Standard for rendering J2EE web app through a portal Requires some target modification to support fragments Also defining CSS integration
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
uPortal Channel Integration Techniques
4. Complete channel Application functionality and rendering performed by portal Data may or may not be managed in uPortal system database
Portal
ContentAggregation
DatasourceChannel
Datasource
Channel
Web ApplicationCustom proxy or CWebProxy
WSRP/J2EE AppStandard proxy
RSS FeedRSSChannel
Web ApplicationCInlineFrame
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
Channel Advantages
Portal (software developer) No need to worry about login or role Don’t need to manage deployment or buy server
Department (academic) More efficient - no more paper, lost forms, collating, etc. Can perform work remotely No more calls from perspective students
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
IT Challenges
Open source means limited tools Little support for channel development and deployment No object (data abstraction) layer inside uPortal No application development environment No application management tools
Policy for deploying outside channels Rogue application can bring down entire portal (System.exit()) Where is channel’s supporting databases, server, etc?
Standards – which? when? Non currently sufficient – permissions, multichannel interaction Will continue to evolve
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
Departmental Challenges
Quality of resulting product Expertise with uPortal and web applications strongly encouraged
Get support from IT, constituents, vendor Need experienced manager/tech lead with allocated resources 100% turnover on all teams each semester
“Hire” students for better continuity
But… the costs are almost zero with very little risk there is great educational value for students - increased
academic value
Thursday February 26, 2004EDUCAUSE Southwest
Summary
Portals are the next step to a complete virtual academic environment Deliver the entire campus, not a discussion board and a gradebook Move closer to fulfilling the true promises of e-learning
Open-source portal solutions provide an excellent boundary between IT support and department investment
Departments can leverage portal investment with little risk Need good students and knowledgeable manager with time Need knowledge of software development process
Knowledge of uPortal deployment and integration strategies key to productivity and success